Haines City man indicted in 2008 shooting death of Davenport store owner

Wednesday

Oct 11, 2017 at 10:32 PMOct 12, 2017 at 9:21 AM

Marilyn Meyer @marilyn_ledger

DAVENPORT — It’s been more than nine years since convenience store owner Jashavaneal Patel, 54, was shot and killed during an attempted robbery at his store.

On Tuesday, Dreon Smith, 31, of Haines City had his first appearance in court on charges of first-degree murder of Patel and attempted robbery with a firearm. A grand jury had issued a sealed indictment on the charges Aug. 31.

Smith was already in prison serving a 5 ½ year sentence for perjury that occurred during a July 2013 grand jury hearing related to Patel’s death. When Smith went to trial on the perjury charge in June 2015, a spokesman for the State Attorney’s Office told The Ledger that Smith may have information about Patel’s death.

Patel had been working on June 20, 2008, in the Rightway Food Store/Citgo gas station on the northeast corner of U.S. 17-92 and West Pine Street, where he was shot and killed. A few minutes after the shooting a customer walked into the store, found Patel lying on the floor, and ran outside, flagging down a passing Polk County Sheriff’s deputy, according to an earlier Ledger article.

At the time, Davenport police said robbery appeared to be a motive.

A week after the killing, when The Ledger wrote about the memorial service for Patel, Jay Patel said of his uncle, “if you met him, you would never forget him. He always liked to joke around and was a real friendly guy. He was also a hard worker.”

The article said that JashavaneaL Patel had a wife and son in India who were unable to attend the memorial services that attracted about 200 mourners from the Indian-American community throughout Central Florida.

Marilyn Meyer can be reached at marilyn.meyer@theledger.com or 863-802-7558. Follow her on Twitter @marilyn_ledger.